Hallucinations, Hauntings, and Demons in the Night
by cactusnell
Summary: I recently saw a prompt that suggested that Molly Hooper was unaware that Sherlock had faked his death. This is my idea of what could have happened. Sherlolly


It had been a long, hard year for Dr, Molly Hooper. Well, almost a year, actually. The first anniversary of the famous detective Sherlock Holmes swan dive off the roof of St. Bartholomew Hospital was fast approaching, and Molly felt all the progress she had made in the last three hundred and sixty-two days slipping away. She could never reconcile the Sherlock she knew and loved so well with the man who had seemingly given into despair and taken his own life. He had been a man who little valued the opinion of others, so she could never understand when the uncalled for damage to his reputation had driven him to his final act. Perhaps it was fortunate, she thought, that her specialty was pathology, as she certainly didn't seem to possess a talend for psychology.

Molly had been devastated by the tragic event. Even more so than John Watson. But, not one to share her feelings or subject her friends to her melancholia, she adopted the traditional stiff upper lip and carried on. She carried on at St. Bart's, she carried on when visiting her friends, she carried on for interminable days, weeks, months, never letting her facade of quiet acceptance slip in public. It was only in the privacy of her flat that she dared to let go. To cry and wail about her lost love and the demise of all her hopes and dreams, no matter how futile she had always known them to be. She often wondered if the brilliant detective had any idea how much of her, Molly Hooper, he was taking with him on that short trip to the sidewalk below.

The anniversary was quickly approaching, and Molly felt she had been losing ground, rather than improving. She had recently started waking up in the morning without such a heavy burden of sadness enveloping her. She had once again expressed interest in her work, and had started a study on the long term effects of caffein on various organs. And, possibly most significantly, she had started dating a man named Tom. Tom was quite the acceptable suitor, smart but not brilliant, confident but not arrogant, and attractive but not mesmerizingly so. He bore a strong physical resemblance to Sherlock Holmes, which had probably, she had to admit, been the thing that first drew her to him. She couldn't help but notice that he seemed far more interested in her than she in him, as he was actively looking for a suitably attractive and accomplished wife to help him climb the corporate ladder. Molly had never been much of a climber, but she was getting to an age when she had to consider where her life was going, and if Tom was willing to drag a couple of kids up that ladder with him, he just might make the cut. This had been the condition of her life - at least up to a few days ago, when she started to lose her grip on reality.

It started when she returned to her flat after work on Wednesday. She unlocked the door and stepped into her sitting room, where she was virtually assaulted by a familiar scent - a touch of sandalwood and myrrh with woodsy undertones and a hint of tobacco. The room smelled like Sherlock Holmes! She quickly turned to stare at the side of the couch where he had spent endless hours lost in his mind palace or making fun of her taste in telly. Studying the empty space, she imagined an indentation in the cushion where he would have sat. She tried to shake off the tears that had immediately sprung into her eyes. "Get a grip, Hooper," she heard herself say, "Don't start backsliding now." She tossed her jacket under the couch, covering up the imagined indent, and took herself off to the kitchen to prepare her dinner.

Things got no better on Thursday. When Molly opened her eyes and sat up in her bed, she noticed something strange. In the darkest corner of her room, there was a old chair. She had never really used it as a place to sit, as it was even more uncomfortable than Sherlock claimed the bed in her spare room was, and it had soon devolved into a receptacle for discarded clothing. Too tired to hang up that dress? Toss it on the chair. Plan on wearing those jeans tomorrow? Don't bother putting them in a drawer - toss them on the chair. There was always a handful of items waiting on the uncomfortable and dilapidated piece of furniture. But this morning she was taken aback to see her cherry covered cardigan resting there. She hadn't worn it for ages. Molly had always assumed Sherlock hated it, the way he rolled his eyes whenever she appeared in it. The man certainly had style, and apparently her oversized, cutesy piece of apparel offended him. That was why she wore it so often around him, just hoping to get a reaction. It was her own little joke, But she hadn't been able to bring herself to put in on since his death, and the garment had been relegated to the rear of her closet. What was it doing on the chair? Perhaps she was losing her mind. A voice in her head, Sherlock's voice, said, "Not much of a loss, I'd say!" Great. Now she was hearing voices. She dragged herself from bed and into the shower, the better to clear her mind. Feeling more clear headed, she went to her kitchen to make coffee, but was taken aback when she opened her cabinet. No one could ever call Molly overly organized, so why were hee spices now arranged in alphabetical order? Spooked, she decided to forgo homemade coffee and settle for the stuff available at the hospital. She needed to think

Thursday night and Friday morning passed uneventfully. Nothing spooked her out of a good homemade breakfast and two cups of homebrewed coffee. All she had to do was get through the day at work, and it was going to e a long one. She had requested the following week off, knowing she needed some time for rest, reflection, and recreation, even before she had started to have those small yet strange experiences. Most of all, she needed rest, sleep. Her sleep patterns hadn't been normal for almost a year. At first, she had suffered vivid dreams and nightmares, which made her dread closing her eyes at night. These had eased up, but her sleep had never really returned to normal. She had tried sleeping pills, but the ones prescribed hadn't worked very well. She was reluctant to try anything stronger, as she didn't want it to affect her work in the morgue or lab. But now, with a whole week stretching out in front of her, with no responsibilities other than to herself, she thought she might try a stronger formulation. She read over the common side effects and decided that if she wasn't at work she could deal with a bit of tingling in the limbs. If she got dizzy, or lost her balance, there was no danger of her tipping over into the chest cavity of a corpse. Drowsiness could be dealt with by a lie down on her couch. And hallucinations? She already seemed to be having them, so what did that matter?

Friday had been a long day, as she had expected. She worked a full shift, then put in an extra couple of hours on paperwork which had to be completed before she took her leave. By the time she arrived home, she was exhausted. She wasn't particularly hungry, so she thought she's simply brew up a pot of tea, and find herself a little snack. Everything was fine until she opened her pantry to find a box of chocolate biscuits. Sherlock Holmes' favorite chocolate biscuits, the kind which she couldn't bear to have in her flat for the past year. So much for a restful evening! She really must be going mad. Was she doing things she didn't remember doing? Was she seeing things that weren't there. Either way, all she wanted to do was escape.

She couldn't call her mother, because she would immediately head to London to nurse her back to health. She couldn't call Tom, as he was away on a business trip for the next ten days. All she could do was take a pill and sleep till morning, and hope that a good night's sleep would clear away the cobwebs and whatever else was lurking in her grief addled mind. So, she proceeded to take a warm bath, a strong sleeping pill, and an inventory of her ever decreasing sanity before collapsing into bed.

Something awakened Molly in the middle of the night. At least, she thought she was awake, but it was difficult to tell given the mental haze caused by the pill. She could tell it was nowhere near dawn, as the only light, and not much at that, was a sliver of moonlight coming through her almost closed curtains. But, for some reason, she was spooked. It was almost as if there was someone else in the room. Probably just Toby, she thought, as she scanned the darkness. And as her scan reached the dark corner containing the clothing strewn chair, she seemed to sense something. A dark shape leaning back in the shadows, Molly sensed rather than saw some movement as the shape seemed to lean forward, just enough for the dim moonlight to illuminate a pale face.

"Sherlock?!"

"Molly/"

"It can't be you!"

"And yet it is,"

"No. You're a hallucination. I've been losing my mind a bit lately."

"Just lately, Molly?"

"Don't make fun of me, you git. You're my hallucination, you could at least be nice to me!"

"Ah, but then I wouldn't be me, would I? And, to further my case, I'm not a hallucination, Molly."

"Then just what are you, Sherlock?"

"Well, perhaps we should consider the possibilities, eh, Dr. Hooper. I have stated that I am not a hallucination. Perhaps I'm a ghost?"

"You don't believe in ghosts, Sherlock."

"But you do, Molly." He looked at her sternly. "Shhh! Don't try to deny it. We both know you do."

Nolly tried to assume a professorial tone as she explained her position on revenants. "I believe that what we perceive as ghosts are simply psychic recordings, memories, left at certain locations where traumatic events have occurred. I do not believe in full-bodied, sentient apparitions, Sherlock, and never have!"

Toby took this moment to enter the conversation, jumping onto the apparitions's lap and positioning himself to be petted. "Gobbledegook! Nonsense dressed up in scientific jargon." He scratched the cat's ears. "Not that it matters in the least, unless you assume that ectoplasm can support an overweight tabby cat. Or that Toby is sharing your hallucination."

"Then I'm still asleep, and dreaming…" She let out a yelp as the vision reached over and pinched her arm. "What was that for?"

"Aren't you supposed to pinch yourself to test if you're dreaming or not? So, not dreaming."

"So, what are you, then? What other possible explanation…"

"Think, Molly. Aren't there any other possibilities?

The woman said, with some trepidation, "I suppose you could be a demon."

"Really, Molly, while I always considered myself to have quite a bit of devilish charm, I would hardly consider my demon class. What kind of demon are we talking about here, although I think I can hazard a guess…"

"Some demons, according to myths, take on a corporeal form to seduce humans. The term for a female seducer is 'succubus', and for a male…"

" 'Incubus'. Yes. I am aware of the term. And I'm quite flattered that you would consider this form to be a successful incubus. But, once again, you are wrong, although we may want to revisit that particular topic at a future time." The dark form finally rose from the chair to stand next to the bed, toeing off his shoes as he did so. "Scoot over a bit, Molly. You're on my side of the bed."

And it was true - she was on his side of the bed. On the occasions when they had shared the bed in the past, platonically, he had always insisted on using that side. He was a creature of habit, after all. But since his supposed demise, Molly had been unable to stomach the thought of waking up to see that side empty, a tangible reminder of his absence. So she had taken to sleeping there herself. Before she had gotten very far, the detective was stretched out next to her, holding her in his arms. She couldn't believe that at this very moment, a moment she had dreamt about for years, she let loose with a jaw-stretching yawn. "I have always flattered myself that you would be more enthused about the situation, Molly. Just what kind of medication are you on?"

Molly was now contentedly burying her lose in his neck and wrapping her arms around the all-to-solid-for-an-apparrtion Sherlock Holmes. She sighed, at the same time stifling yet another yawn. ""You feel real."

"I am real, my love."

""You've come back then? Really?"

"I've only come back to you, Molly. Everybody else must remain in the dark. Their lives may depend on it. Moriarty threatened to burn the heart out of me if I didn't end my life. He had assassins in place to remove John, and Mr. Hudson. And Lestrade. I've been away, dismantling his network a bit at a time, until Mycroft and I feel the threat is removed. As long as his operatives believe I am truly dead, there is no reason to act on their orders to kill…"

Even through the hae of the drugs in her system, Molly felt a cold chill. "Am I marked for death, too, Sherlock?"

He could feel her tremble, and pulled her even closer. "You seem to have escaped his attention, Molly. But I couldn't take any chances. If anything had happened to you, he would have succeeded in burning the heart out of me. I have spent the past several days surveilling your flat, and have uncovered no evidence of any danger to you. You're safe. Mycroft's people have been watching over everybody, you in particular. But you can tell no one of my continued existence. You understand? No one!"

"But, Sherlock, you're home now…"

"Only for a few days, my love. I had to come home. There was an unexpected threat…"

"But you said Mycroft was looking after everyone. What threat that he couldn't handle?"

"Not you, love. Or anyone on the list. The threat was to me. I had to come home to handle it."

"My god, Sherlock. You're in danger! What threat? And how can you handle it?" Molly was getting a bit hysterical now, and clinging to him even more.

"Relax, Molly. It's nothing that I can't handle. I've done it often enough in the past. And it's not really a physical threat, just a threat to everything that's important to me. I'll be fine, I hope. But it's all up to you…"

"What the bloody hell are you talking about, Sherlock? What do you mean it's up to me? Who's threatening you?"

"Mycroft tells me his name is Tom. Perfect husband material, according to my brother. Nice man, nice job, nice future…"

"He is nice. You're not nice, but I love you, Sherlock Holmes."

"Yes, well, I came home hoping you'd remember that."

"Tell me you love me, then. Go on, say it. Even if I'm not dreaming, I probably won't remember it in the morning."

"You're probably right about that, but I'll be here to remind you. Now, get some sleep, and maybe we could revisit that whole incubus scenario in the morning."

"You're right, you know, You do have a sort of devilish charm," she murmured as she snuggled against him. "But be forewarned, when I'm more lucid, you're going to have a lot more explaining to do about breaking my heart."

"Of course, Molly," he sighed heavily as he kissed her forehead while she drifted off, both anticipating and dreading just a bit the morning to come.


End file.
